Women's WIRE

Women's WIRE (later Women.com) was the first online space and the first Internet company to target women. It was founded in California first as simply WIRE in 1992, an acronym that stood for Women's Information Resource & Exchange, and could be accessed via telnet for a subscription. Women's WIRE was conceived of by self-taught computer programmer, Nancy Rhine and then co-founded with entrepreneur, Ellen Pack. Later, Women's WIRE migrated to the World Wide Web and became known as Women.com. The site drew millions of visitors a month, with around 300,000 visitors per day. It provided users with email access, community functions such as chatrooms and forums, access to news, advice, and information. In the dot.com bubble of 1999, Women's WIRE began to suffer financial losses and was eventually acquired by iVillage in 2001.